April 26, 2013

Matt Taibbi, of Rolling Stone, the only main stream press outlet doing any real reporting on the major financial scandals of the last 6 years. Once again he shares the latest scandal….fixing interest rate swaps. As big or bigger than LIBOR.

So, groovygirl’s question is the same with the LIBOR question. Are they still doing this? And when they were, how did they effect the market? Less or more volatility, just timing? Higher or lower prices? If they should stop, how would the market act?

April 24, 2013

Gerald Celente had a great interview on KWN yesterday. His new trends report is out. KWN blog post here.

About the Boston Bombing:

Well, there are a lot of elements to it, and of course it was a tragedy. But there is also another tragedy that’s not being talked about, and that is that they effectively declared Martial Law.

Groovygirl thought the exact same thing watching the TV news last Friday. And then, when the suspect was caught, people cheered. There is absolutely nothing, nothing, about this bombing, 10,000 armed manhunt, martial law, shut down of a major city, and the final capture that needs cheering. It is all, from beginning to end….very scary. The values of the culture and society that created the bombing and the militant reaction, both are disturbing. And both will seal the fate of the society that produced them.

So as societies breakdown you are going to see more and more Martial Law put in place to keep the people in place.This is unprecedented, and it’s not making the news. There is barely any outrage, barely any protests about what happened.

So, apparently there is a little gold war between Martin Armstrong and Jim Sinclair.

If gg may share her humble opinion, she thinks she has isolated the problem, besides the unintended consequences of a 140-character communication world.

Who is Jim Sinclair’s audience? What perspective does Jim come from? What has he done in the past? Now?

Who is Martin Armstrong’s audience? What perspective does Martin come from? What has he done in the past? Now?

Answer these questions and you will see these men are speaking from two different sides of the same coin.

Side musing: btw, you should be asking these questions of everyone you listen to: government, business, news organizations, investment advice, everything. Knowing who the target audience is will help you determine how information might or might not apply to your needs. It helps you to disregard unusable info quickly. So you don’t waste time and energy. This is called context. I don’t think they teach this in school anymore, just like they don’t teach critical thinking.

Martin advises large nations, sovereign funds, and governments. Jim advises brokers, mining companies, gold traders, and individual investors. These two types of investors do things for very different reasons and occasionally they may act in unison. And both perspectives are useful for governments and individuals to understand.

Gold is a hedge against government for the INDIVIDUAL, but it is not suited for the big institutional investors who require income not capital gains.

And…could we all just get away from the numbers game of the what the top price in gold will be? No one knows what the top price will be… period. Jim’s top price and Martin’s top price and timing are places for the investor who is holding or trading gold to pay attention to the market for possible changes. It doesn’t mean it will happen as stated, it is guide post, a reminder to now pay closer attention. That’s how gg is using their respective predictions.

gg would really appreciate it if this little gold war could cease and we could get back to sharing real and valuable information in a financial-talking-head world. Anything else is a distraction. And that goes for commentators egging it on.

Groovygirl particularly liked Jesse’s quote of the day yesterday. So very true.

“Every dictatorship has ultimately strangled in the web of repression it wove for its people, making mistakes that could not be corrected because criticism was prohibited.”

Robert F. Kennedy

We can extend this concept to every aspect of business, society, and life. When negative feed back loops are cut-off, like putting AAA ratings on sub-prime lending (with full compliance of the rating agencies) and moving derivative bets off the balance sheet (with full compliance of private and public regulators), whole industries dig their own graves.

April 23, 2013

Yes, here is Jim Sinclair’s account of a friend who tried to get his physical gold from his allocated account. There was no long waiting period like last time the physical and cash markets diverged, he just couldn’t have it! Could only get cash settlement.

Sinclair: “A person that I know with significant deposits in one of the primary Swiss banks, in allocated gold, wanted to take out his gold and was just refused on the basis of directives from the central bank….

“They told him the amount was in excess of 200,000 Swiss francs and the central bank had instructed them not to do it because it has to do with anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering precautions.

Uhh, yeah.

Side musing: gg could see this excuse used in the future for moving cash out of a country.